Ness (PM)

Ness is a playable character in the Brawl mod Project M and is ranked 19th out of 41 on the official officialtier list, at the top of B tier. This is an improvement over his placements in Melee and Brawl where he was 23rd out of 26 and 26th out of 38, respectively.

His placing on the tier list comes from having one of the best punishes in the game, as well as a solid neutral. However, he is held back due to a susceptibility to crouch canceling from most of his moves, being easily outranged by a lot of the cast, and a recovery which is generally easy to edgeguard despite sending him far.

Ness is a flexible character suiting both aggressive and zoning oriented playstyles. With an average weight and fall speed, he remains somewhat susceptible and exasperates his unreliable recover. His aerial moves lead into each other well, giving him a strong combo game once he can get his opponent off the ground.

Ness's smash attacks all have unusual properties. His forward smash can reflect projectiles if timed correctly, and deals extreme damage and knockback if the sweetspot near the tip of the bat is hit, similar to Marth's Sword. It can be angled up or down by a few degrees if the control stick is tilted during startup. The down angled forward smash is especially useful for intercepting opponents attempting to sweetspot the ledge.

His up smash involves his yo-yo, sending it whipping around his body in a circle. Although it does not grow stronger as it is charged, it maintains a weak hitbox on the yo-yo, sitting in front of and disjointed from Ness's body. This makes it useful for flinching approaching opponents comboing into the strong hit on upward swing the up smash release. The upswing itself is useful for intercepting aerial opponents due to it's disjoint. These combined properties mean that this move is useful near the ledge. Hanging the yo-yo off of the ledge can make it difficult for some characters to sweetspot and if the opponent passes close above or in front of Ness he can still intercept without moving. However, it can no longer be used to perform the yo-yo glitch like it could in Melee.

Ness's down smash is similar to his up smash when charging, except that the weak hitbox comes out behind him. This makes it useful if Ness is being pursued on the ground. The release drags opponents in front of Ness, setting up for an aerial follow up.

His forward tilt is a quick kick that is useful in it tight situations where there is no time to initiate a smash attack, while still putting space between Ness and his opponent.

Down tilt is fast and combos into itself if the opponent does not smash DI. Against experienced opponents only a few hits are possible to land, but the move retains usefulness in that it can be used to mix up timing before using a different move.

Up tilt is useful for its high base knockback at low percents. Useful for aerial followups, but does however lose out to double jump cancelled up air for sheer utility.

Ness's aerial moves have a mix of their properties from Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

His neutral aerial comes out quickly and deals moderate knockback, making it one of Ness's best moves. It is very similar to Peach's neutral air. In addition to being a good choice for interrupting combos, it can
also serve as a K.O. move in many situations. On stages with narrower blast lines, hitting an opponent with neutral air on stage, than following with another off stage can K.O. an opponent by pushing them into the side blast line at medium low percents. Characters with short recoveries can also be killed very early regardless of the distance to the blast line.

His forward air has multiple disjointed weak hits, making a useful combo starter, before chaining another forward air to continue the combo, or a neutral air to launch opponents away. It is also useful for dragging opponents down to the ground before using a grab or grounded attack.

Ness's back aerial is very strong when sweetspotted, and is a great aerial for getting a K.O. off of the side blast lines. It easily combos out of down throw at lower percents setting up for an edgeguard. It can be used as in a reverse aerial rush, giving it similar utility to Captain Falcon's knee somewhat reduced due to Ness's slower speed.

His up aerial is a juggling move at lower percentages, and makes a great combo finisher for K.O.ing foes above the upper blast line at higher percentages. This is often possible after landing a down air on a grounded opponent at high percentages, due to the high hitstun of an opponent bounced off the ground.

Ness's down aerial now functions similarly to how it did in Super Smash Bros. The move is a powerful, quick, and easy to sweetspot meteor smash, making it effective for edgeguarding opponents. In addition it has great utility out of shield and for pressuring shielding opponents. If two players are shielding back to back, Ness can jump and use down air to cover his escape upwards or pressure his opponent's shield.

Ness's ability to double jump cancel advances his already potent air game by giving him even more combo options and allowing him to do multiple aerials in quick succession close to the ground.

Ness's specials are vastly improved from their other iterations.

PK Fire is Ness's primary offensive projectile allowing him to control space and prevent opponents from approaching recklessly. Ness fires it horizontally when grounded, and downward diagonally when in the air. Upon hitting an opponent, projectile or destructible object, the projectile ignites. It deals doing one strong hit, followed by successive weak hits, and engulfs opponent in place. Ness maintains momentum after using PK Fire in the air, making the move useful for protection when landing.

PSI Magnet inflicts damage and Ness can jump out of it, giving the move a pseudo-waveshine capability while greatly advancing his combo game.

PK Flash does not travel as high and has a much faster but still very slow startup, but it travels very quickly if Ness sends it forward. Fully charged it covers a very large area and launches very powerfully upwards. Though difficult to time, it can cover the ledge while an opponent is trying to recover and force opponents to recover low or air stall. It is a very large commitment as the long cool down prevents Ness from moving in time to attempt another edgeguard, even if PK Flash forces the opponents with a slow recovery close to the blast zone. Regardless, it still remains an effective finisher or edgeguarding move in certain matchups.

Ness's up special PK Thunder, has two phases. The first phase, is much more useful than in previous games. It has a hitbox on its tail allowing it to trap opponents in certain situations. The angle of collision determines the angle at which Ness is launched. PK Thunder can also be used as an offensive projectile to juggle or KO airborne opponents or knock grounded opponents closer to Ness. Characters with slow recoveries are especcially vulnerable to it while trying to recover. It does competes with PK Flash in this utility though. The second phase in which Ness's movement takes place occurs if Ness directs his thunder into himself. PK Thunder 2 deals massive damage and knockback and sends Ness a very far distance, at the cost of being easy to gimp, relatively hard to control, and having a huge amount of ending lag. The ending lag can be mitigated by sweetspotting the ledge with PK Thunder 2, however this can be difficult. Furthermore, projectiles that are not transcendent can destroy the PK Thunder and leave Ness helpless. PK Thunder can also be used as an offensive projectile to juggle or KO airborne opponents or knock grounded opponents closer to Ness.

Ness's grab game is generally effective. His back throw is a very reliable K.O.ing move at higher percents. Ness's forward throw has very low knockback scaling, giving it a decent launch power even at 0 setting up for very early edgeguarding. Up and down throws both can be used as combo starters, sending opponents into the air and setting up for an aerial attack depending on the weight, damage, and fall speed of the opponent. Ness's grab range is very short, limiting the usefulness of his standing grab.

Ness's recovery, despite its length, has significant weakness as it can be intercepted before and after initiation. Additionally, his relatively floaty falling speed makes him vulnerable to many vertical finishers (i.e. Fox's up air) and gives him some difficulty getting back to the stage. Ness tends to fare poorly against characters with large disjoins and a strong edgeguarding game. Marth and Ivysaur are notable examples. Characters with fast, solid projectiles like Sheik can make it very difficult for him to recover low because of the long start up time of his recovery. He also has limited options for dealing with pressure, giving him weaknesses against fast characters with aggressive playstyles. Ness tends to have favorable match ups against heavy, larger, slower characters due to the extensive length of combos he can pull off on them, and the strength of his zoning tools.

Ness retains his double jump cancel ability, though it is now optional; just pressing and then releasing the jump button when attacking will cause him to DJC, while holding the jump button causes him to perform a rising aerial, just like characters who cannot use this technique. Special moves will always DJC.

Up aerial (109 → 118) and the sweetspot of back aerial (100 → 115) have increased knockback scaling.

Down aerial is now closer to its Smash 64 counterpart, greatly reducing its startup (frame 20 → 5) and ending lag (frame 60 → 38) though it is still slower than it's 64 counterpart. It also has much higher knockback scaling (70 → 90 (clean), 80 (late)) and deals 2% more damage (12% → 14%). It also has less landing lag (28 frames → 20).

Down aerial now has a weaker late hit and it has much less base knockback (90 → 40 (clean), 20 (late)) making it less effective at lower percents. Its auto-cancel window is also much smaller (frame <19 29> → <3 >35) making it auto-cancel later and no longer making it auto-cancel the entire time the hitbox isn't active.

PK Flash, though retaining its powerful knockback, is smaller and deals much less damage.

PK Fire's flame effect has the same power as in Brawl. Ness also keeps his forward momentum when using it in midair. The move can additionally "Fobble": the knockback of other hitboxes that hit within a 3 frame window of one of the PK Fire's repeating hitboxes gets completely canceled due to Project M's new knockback engine, allowing the player to rack up deadly amounts of damage.

The pillar has been reduced from being active for 100 frames to being active for 45 frames.

PK Thunder 2 travels farther and keeps its hitbox throughout the move.

Ness can jump out of PSI Magnet (like how the space animals can jump out of their Reflectors), and the move additionally deals consecutive damage, with a strong initial hit that sends foes above Ness and link into aerial attacks. When absorbing a projectile, he can also cancel the move to go into the ending animation afterwards, preventing rapid-fire projectiles such as Fox's Blaster from trapping him into the move indefinitely.

Up tilt has better coverage in front of Ness, and can be interrupted earlier.

Down tilt can be interrupted into itself quickly like in Melee and Brawl.

Forward smash can now be angled, and its tipper hit has increased knockback scaling.

PK Flash can be charged for slightly longer.

PK Fire travels for slightly longer.

PK Thunder has a hitbox during startup, and the thunderbolt no longer vanishes when entering the horizontal blast lines. It also no longer dies when Ness is hit, and instead becomes unfriendly towards any player and continuing in the same direction before he got hit.

PK Thunder 2 travels a bit faster over the same distance, and its hitboxes have more coverage over Ness.

PSI Magnet's healing multiplier was slightly increased, and the move can be jumped out of. It additionally causes Ness to float for much longer at the start when used in midair.

PSI Magnet was given damaging hitboxes; a weak launching one at the start, then repeated non-flinching ones afterwards.

Up and down smashes' refresh time between hits while charging has been slightly reduced.

PSI Magnet can be released during the absorb lag to go into the end animation afterwards, preventing rapid hitting projectiles like Fox's Blaster shots that can re-hit before the absorb lag ends from trapping him into it indefinitely. The absorb lag was also reduced greatly.

Quickly extends both his arms upwards. Can be used to juggle fast fallers up to 70% which can then lead into an aerial attack. Ness's head is intangible when performing the attack.

Down tilt

3%

Kicks his foot out slightly. Short ranged attack, but can be used in quick succession.

Dash attack

5% (hit 1), 4% (hits 2-3)

Runs forward and creates three disjointed PSI bubbles from his hands. The first two hits have a semi-spike trajectory, while the last hit sends opponents straight upwards which can lead into aerials.

Forward smash

18% (body),20% (bat base), 22% (bat mid), 24% (bat tip)

Takes out his bat and swings it the opponent horizontally. The sweetspot is located at the bat's tip. The bat can reflectprojectiles.

Up smash

2% (charging hits 1-7), 12% (swing)

Takes out his yo-yo and swings it above him, performing the "around the world trick". Pretty fast for an up smash; covering a wide area above his head. It is also affected slightly by gravity when used near an edge. Can be charged, but doing so does not increase the attack's damage.

Down smash

2% (hits 1-7 [hold]), 12% (swing)

Takes out his yo-yo and swings it across the floor, performing the "walk the dog" trick. Strong power, can be used to safely edge-guard from the stage. Similar to his up smash, the yo-yo doesn't increase in damage or in knockback when it's "charging".

Neutral aerial

11% (clean), 8% (late)

Spins diagonally in the air with arms stretched out. Has good knockback and is very fast with high combo potential, but has poor range.

Forward aerial

4% (hits 1-2), 2% (hits 3-4), 3% (hit 5)

Sticks his palms out, sending a stream of PSI sparks in front of him. This move hits multiple times, making it harder to so towards enemies at high percents.

Back aerial

15% (clean), 10% (late)

Thrusts both his feet backwards. The sweetspot deals electrical damage and possess high KO potential.

Up aerial

13%

Headbutts upwards. Good for juggling at lower percents and a good KO move at higher percents.

Down aerial

14%

Kicks one foot downwards. A fast meteor smash, useful for edge-guarding. Combined with double-jump canceling and L-canceling, it can also pressure shields efficiently.

Grab

—

Grabs the opponent with both hands. The fastest grab in the game, but has short reach.

Pummel

3%

Headbutts the opponent.

Forward throw

11%

Psychokinetically swings his opponent in a small circle in front of himself before sending them off forward.

Back throw

11%

Psychokinetically swings the opponent over his head before sending them off backwards, in a diagonally upwards motion. Has low base knockback, but a surprisingly strong knockback scaling, becoming a powerful KO move and also one of the strongest throws in the game.

Up throw

10%

Psychokinetically spins the opponent above his head before sending them up. Can chain grab at very low percentage and set up for aerial followups.

Ness generates a green ball of light that slowly rises vertically above Ness before descending. The downward arc can be controlled by moving either left or right on the control stick. This can be used as an effective edge-guarding move, due to its range and power. The explosion can be absorbed and reflected, though the latter only affects Ness if he's close to it.

Ness shoots a lighting bolt forward that bursts into a pillar of flames upon hitting a foe. When used in midair, Ness instead shoots it at a diagonally downward angle while keeping his forward momentum. The pillar is affected by gravity and can be hit by attacks. The bolt vanishes upon hitting a surface, and can be reflected or absorbed.

Ness produces ball of lightning from his head, which he can then control freely. When the projectile is first produced, a brief hitbox covers his body, repelling foes attempting to stop the attack. If the projectile hits Ness, he will be propelled in the same direction it was last travelling in, surrounded by a powerful electric hitbox, known as PK Thunder 2. If the tip of the projectile hits a surface, foe, a disjointed hitbox that deals knockback, or gets absorbed, the projectile will disappear and leave Ness helpless (in midair). If the projectile is reflected or if Ness is hit while controlling the beam, he will lose control of the projectile and will continue flying in the same direction he was guiding it in. When hitting a wall or ceiling with PK Thunder 2, Ness will either travel parallel to it or rebound off it, depending on how perpendicular to the wall he was when he blasted into it. When PK Thunder 2 is launched towards the ground, he will lie on the floor. Though an effective recovery move, it's difficult to recover with it between tall walls (such as the buildings in Fourside).

Ness creates a purple energy field around him which allows him to absorb all energy-based projectiles. As an attack, it first launches enemies diagonally upwards, then hits consecutively with no knockback. When used in the air, it resets Ness's falling speed. He can jump out of the ending lag of the move to string it together with aerials.